David Leafe saw and heard some shocking things during his visit to Slough, Berkshire, where the stench of cannabis lingered in the air as he engaged with locals
A man found Britain’s most miserable town to be “the place locals do unthinkable things in public” during his eye-opening visit.
David Leafe encountered deserted shopping streets with empty units, a lingering stench of cannabis and stomach-churning toilets in Slough, Berkshire. It was where he grew up in 1960s – but he found a lot has changed in the decades since. So much so, Slough was branded the ugliest town in the UK in 2023 in a national newspaper and last year was denounced Britain’s most miserable town in a poll by property website Rightmove.
David chatted to locals, including 67-year-old John Hughes who has run his baked potato stall in the High Street for the last 34 years. Mr Hughes said: “The other day I saw a man defecating just around the corner. And my friend who runs another stall saw a couple having sex in the road just along from Boots – and this was in broad daylight. There are toilets in the shopping centre but people wee up the doors outside all the time. It’s like they just can’t be bothered to go in and nobody does anything about it.”
Quite the advert for a town which, in the 1960s, prospered with thriving retailers, including a branch of department store Suters. It has now fallen into a state of decline – with hoardings hiding empty shop units instead.
‘I visited a popular Waitrose but felt like I was at a funeral at a ghost town’
Having navigated through the town centre, moving away from the stench of cannabis, David spoke to retired quarryman Ken Fletcher. The 78-year-old man said: “It’s heartbreaking to see the High Street like this because when you came here on a Saturday afternoon years ago it was so busy that you could hardly move. Now it’s really grim. We’d rather drive to places like Bracknell. That’s a good shopping centre.”
Homelessness and crime remain challenges for the authorities in Slough, the Daily Mail reports. There were 1,196 recorded instances of shoplifting in Slough in 2024 – a staggering 51 per cent increase on the previous year.
It stretches the resources of Thames Valley Police and Slough Borough Council, which was declared bankrupt in 2021. It found a “catastrophic” £100million black hole in its budget.
It means chances of any redevelopment in the town centre are slim, as much of it now belongs to the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) which bought the Queensmere and Observatory Shopping Centres in 2016 and has not followed through on plans to replace them with new businesses, shops and homes.
And, if it wasn’t for his loyal, regular trade, Mr Hughes feels he would struggle to make ends meet. The baked potato stall owner continued: “We’re still earning a good living because we know the locals but I wouldn’t fancy starting up a business here now.”
Britain’s most miserable town, it seems, faces a huge challenge to shake off the infamous tag. Like that waft of cannabis in the town centre, reputation sticks – and takes time to disappear.
